


binary stars

by elizabethelizabeth



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alpha Centauri (Good Omens), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Heaven, M/M, Outer Space, Post-Scene: The Bandstand (Good Omens), Scene: The Bandstand (Good Omens), physics? don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethelizabeth/pseuds/elizabethelizabeth
Summary: “Why on earth—”“Exactly! Earth, burning goo, done for, kaput! Aziraphale, come on.”Aziraphale looks as if he’s fighting his own mental heaven-and-hell battle, and Crowley means “mental” in all its connotations. Wringing his hands, looking about as if waiting to be struck down on the spot, right through the roof of the gazebo they stand under.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 164





	binary stars

**Author's Note:**

> here is my baby that I have been working on since September, I politely request that you please love her

“The division    
[of theoretical philosophy]    
which investigates material and    
ever-moving nature,    
and which concerns itself with    
‘white’,    
‘hot’,    
‘sweet’,    
‘soft’    
and suchlike qualities one may call ‘physics’;    
such an order of being is situated    
(for the most part)    
amongst corruptible bodies    
and below the lunar sphere.”    
Ptolemy, 100 A.D.

“If,    
on the contrary,    
two stars should really be situated very near each other...   
they will then compose a separate system,    
and remain united by the bond of their own    
mutual gravitation    
towards each other.”    
Sir William Herschel, 1802 A.D.

“It will take awhile    
To make you smile   
Somewhere in these eyes   
I’m on your side.”   
Beach House, 2015 A.D.

How fast can demons travel?

If you’re a demon and you’re Crowley, it depends. Circumstantial. Subjective. If you’re a demon and you’re Crowley and you’re stationed to do dark bidding outside a garden, you most definitely travel faster than the poor sods just recently booted from said garden. You slither and skulk up a wall to watch retreating figures and to make aimless conversation. If you’re a demon and you’re Crowley and you’re driving along Grosvenor to reach Battersea Park and an irascible-sounding angel, you bypass traffic and take knife-sharp turns on corners, but there’s no miracling away the Thames.

You cross the Thames. You beg an angel to run away with you. The angel refuses.

“We’re  _ not _ friends, we are—”

“Come on, Angel,” Crowley says, interrupting what he’s sure is a foolproof excuse, but Crowley doesn’t want to hear it. “Trust me on this.”

“Why on earth—”

“Exactly! Earth, burning goo, done for, kaput! Aziraphale, come on.” 

Aziraphale looks as if he’s fighting his own mental heaven-and-hell battle, and Crowley means “mental” in all its connotations. Wringing his hands, looking about as if waiting to be struck down on the spot, right through the roof of the gazebo they stand under.

“Crowley, we can’t—”

“We can, Aziraphale.” Crowley forcibly erases the irritation and leaves only the desperation as he asks, “Please?”

It works, apparently. Aziraphale nods. “Alright. I need you to drive me to the bookshop, and then we can go.”

Crowley doesn’t question and doesn’t argue. He breaks a few sound barriers en route to the shop, and Aziraphale doesn’t comment once.

While waiting on Aziraphale to do whatever it is he’s doing, Crowley steps out of the Bentley, pats the hood fondly. “Good girl,” he says, and snaps his fingers. The Bentley sits in his palm, and Crowley swears he can feel irritation radiating from the miniature vehicle. “Hush up. You’ll be normal size again when we get to Proxima,” and places her in an impossible inner pocket of his jacket.

Aziraphale emerges with a carpetbag, overnight-sized. Crowley doesn’t ask what the contents are. Aziraphale gives a nervous smile. “Shall we?”

Crowley holds out his hand, Aziraphale takes it. They both unfurl their wings out of some ethereal third plane and into this one.

It is storming in London, and it is storming all over the world when Crowley and Aziraphale leave Earth’s atmosphere. Crowley holds tightly the angel’s hand because Crowley knows the way. Crowley knows the way because he’d perfected Alpha Centauri and its coal exterior, diamond in the rough, hidden treasure of a hiding spot.

Alpha Centauri, or the edges of it anyway, is 4.37 light-years away from Earth. There is not a known word in the western numbers system to equivocate how much that distance is in kilometers.

Aziraphale sighs, flexes his fingers in Crowley’s grip, and Crowley knows instantly that the angel is impatient.

How fast can demons travel? Faster than angels.

“What?”

“Are you angry?”

They fly past Saturn.

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m trying to remember whether I needed to turn left at Albuquerque.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale pauses. Crowley flies past Neptune and all of its moons before Aziraphale speaks again. “That was a joke.”

An invention of supposed superiority, humor and sarcasm belong to Crowley’s camp but considering current circumstances, Crowley wonders whether he has any claim to anything remotely demonic anymore.

Crowley stops at Pluto, the sunny side, both to get his bearings and give Aziraphale a break. Crowley knows it has been a bit since Aziraphale last flew, knows he is a bit out of practice, but will never say it out loud. Aziraphale rolls his shoulders and ruffles his feathers as the two of them look around the icy landscape.

Humans are the ones who came up with dwarf planets and their apparent unworthiness of planetary relevance. Aziraphale had asked, once, what all the fuss was about when the planet had been formally removed from the current solar system in 2006. Aziraphale cried after Crowley explained, with no small amount of vitriol, what all the fuss was about.

“Dreadful,” Aziraphale explained. “So many people  _ loved _ that planet.”

So, too, did Crowley, after that.

The surface temperature of Pluto averages at -229 degrees Celsius. In other words, a bit nippy, but otherwise bearable.

“Just a pit stop,” Crowley remarks by way of a needless excuse. “Always wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

Aziraphale doesn’t let go of Crowley’s hand, and Crowley notices but pretends not to.

“Dear, this really is lovely, but I do think we need to keep moving.”

“You think?”

“I  _ know _ .”

“Oh, all-knowing.”

“Hardly.” Aziraphale’s coattails rustle in the wind. Pluto is  _ breezy _ , apparently. “I  _ think _ someone will notice we’ve, er, skipped town, as it is.”

“Skipped town?”

“Don’t be difficult, I’m quite sure that’s the correct use of the idiom.”

“Well, anyway.” Neither side claims segues. “It’ll take my side awhile to notice I’m gone. And they won’t know where we’re going.”

“You think?”

Crowley finally turns to Aziraphale, gives his first grin of the journey. “I  _ know _ .”

\--

That Angels have specific attributions is a human invention. Gabriel for Strength, Michael for Protection. Azrael for Death. Raphael for Life.

This is all false, of course. Angels wouldn’t debase themselves so much as to demean themselves to singular categories, as it would prevent them from participating in Creation.

Ah, yes, that is another thing humans got wrong.

God didn’t create the whole of everything by Herself, that would be ridiculous. The idea of putting all of that pressure onto one all-knowing, eternal being’s shoulders? Perish the thought.

No, God conscripted help. Earth was all Her, but the rest was up for grabs, as the saying eventually went.

Raphael knelt on Nothing and Everything, before the concepts of the two were invented, and dipped their fingers into the beginning of an Existence. When they pulled back, Light was left, two sources of it, nestled together. Raphael knew of Light, had seen Her creation of it just yesterday, and quite liked the look of it. Raphael leaned closer, breathed hot over the specks of Light, and watched as they further illuminated. Raphael saw what their hair looked like, the same as Azrael’s cheeks when flushed with excitement, and made the Light in that same image. Raphael looked at Azrael, who looked back at them, grinning in proud delight at Raphael’s work. Raphael made the outskirts of Light match the luster of Azrael’s hair, bright and curled and overwhelming. Then, to soften, made the Light’s bright core shine with the matching radiance of Azrael’s eyes, the same as the Sea and the Sky, which She had thought of just that morning.

Azrael had sat beside them as Raphael worked, silent throughout. “Well?” Raphael asked for Azrael’s opinion. 

Azrael gave it. “Beautiful.”

“Is that Good?”

“Yes, Raphael.”

Raphael smiled, and Azrael’s cheeks flushed again. “Beautiful.”

\--

Crowley takes off his sunglasses as he and Aziraphale look back towards the Milky Way. A human name for a heavenly creation, and an odd choice, really. This particular galaxy is a bruise on the Universe, purple and black and green against the Nothing surrounding it, bright only because of the weak star at its center.

“She really did do a good job on it, didn’t She?”

Crowley shrugs. “It’s a’right, I guess.” He pauses. “You remember Babel?”

To anyone else the question would be confusing, but Aziraphale is entirely unfazed by the non-sequitur. “604, wasn’t it? After the flood?” Aziraphale pauses. “The very beginnings of human ingenuity.”

“Terrible idea.”

“Oh, undoubtedly, but we have to commend them for  _ having _ the idea, in any case.” Aziraphale flies the slightest bit closer to Crowley, probably to get a better view. “We went stargazing. They had just laid the foundation stones, and you—”

“We.”

“ _ Someone  _ had the bright idea of laying on them and...watch the stars.” Aziraphale looks out at those same stars now, Crowley notes in his periphery. “I hadn’t really noticed the Milky Way all that much before that point. Beautiful thing, stargazing.”

Crowley swallows before he speaks. “Can’t do that much, anymore. Light pollution. And, no,” Crowley scowls in Aziraphale’s direction. “My lot did  _ not  _ invent that, before you ask.”

“I wasn’t going to, dear.” Aziraphale is looking at Crowley, not at the view at all. “Crowley, I should tell you, I—”

“Are you going to say something about Armageddon?”

“No. Well, yes, but—”

“Don’t.” Crowley puts on his sunglasses again, makes a point to look at Aziraphale over them, showing his eyes so he knows Aziraphale will take him seriously. “Not yet. Wait until we arrive, yeah?”

Aziraphale looks like he wants to argue, which is no surprise, but he nods in agreement. 

\--

There weren’t words for feelings at the time, and there wouldn’t be for awhile. While in Grace, there was only Grace and nothing else. 

There wasn’t supposed to be anything else.

In impossibility, an Archangel felt something that will later be described as Desire.

In creation of the heavenly bodies, the broom-sweep galaxies and smattering of stars, there was Desire. In the boiling depths of black holes and the soaring heights of traversing comets, there was Desire. Raphael took pride in the work, was told it was Good, praise was a comforting hand on the head. 

Comfort was Azrael’s hand, palm up, an offering of trust.

Raphael discovered being deviant, ran an index finger along the palm lines (love and laughter, they will represent later), and Desired the shiver that it elicited from Azrael’s shoulders.

The idea of Seven Deadly Sins was a human construct, or would be later. 

Raphael experienced a version of all of them in the time before.

Before.

\--

Space is weightless. Or, things in it are weightless. Or, rather, things lose their ability to have measurable mass in space. Or, something. Crowley studied the science of this at one point or another, pored over one of his thousand of books relating to space (Hawking’s  _ A Brief History of Time _ ; Mary Roach’s  _ Packing for Mars _ ; Ptolemy and Galileo and Herschel; an illustrated children’s book about the solar system entitled  _ Hello, World! Solar System _ , exclamation point included). Crowley has the limitless ability of remembrance, there are no restrictions to his knowledge. That he can choose to pretend to forget whenever time calls for it is something else entirely (he’ll forget a previously agreed upon date to annoy Aziraphale, he’ll forget the portions of history he’d rather not remember, he’ll forget the plots of certain books just so he can hear Aziraphale gush about characters and themes, Lord, do the angel’s cheeks always turn red whenever he gets excited?) and he won’t cop to it. 

Space is weightless.

So why does the hand clasped in Crowley’s own feel so heavy?

“Why do you think none of these galaxies ended up inhabitable?”

Crowley snorts out a laugh. “Oh, they’re plenty inhabitable. They were created that way.”

There was a pregnant pause as Aziraphale seemed to settle on this pseudo-confession that Crowley has inadvertently hinted at. “How—”

“As for _why_ they’re not inhabited,” Crowley barrels on, pretending to feign ignorance at the almost-question of Aziraphale’s tone, “That’s a question for _The Almighty_.”

“And I suppose you asked, did you?” This interrogation is different; there’s not really a question, it’s just Aziraphale accusing Crowley. “That is what you do, isn’t it?”

Crowley uses his wings to stop, which he doesn’t necessarily need to do, but he does. He could stop flying with a thought, but he rather likes the drama of stopping with a violent flapping of wings. It makes Aziraphale stumble—or whatever the air version of stumbling is—and when Crowley turns around he sees immediately the irritation that accompanies it. 

“We’re here.”

Humans, by that point, had discovered only one planet in Alpha Centauri, besides the twin stars, called Proxima Centauri b. An entirely unoriginal name; Crowley misses the enlightened naming systems of early astronomy, naming things after mythologies and interesting humans. Proxima Centauri b literally means a class of planet in the approximate space of Alpha Centauri. No flash, no showmanship. 

Crowley can’t think of a better name, at the moment. 

“What did you want to tell me Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale scoffs, oblivious to their surroundings. “Don’t avoid the question, Crowley.”

“You’re the one avoiding questions, angel. What did you want to tell me?”

“I don’t  _ question  _ Her, Crowley. You know that I can’t.”

“But you  _ look _ , don’t you?” Crowley lets go of Aziraphale’s hand, flies closer with another useless brush of wings. “You looked for answers, because you’re a self-important bastard who can’t resist being in the dark. And then—and  _ then _ —you have some sort of nerve to...to  _ berate  _ me for Falling, for the simple sin of asking questions.”

Aziraphale tenses the hand that was previously held in Crowley’s, stretches out the tendons of his fingers. He’s nervous.

Crowley thinks he knows the answer already, but he asks once more.

“What did you want to tell me, Aziraphale?”

Another question. Not the last.

“I know where the Antichrist is.”

An angel who lies, and a demon who relentlessly tells the truth. What a dichotomous concept. 

“I thought so.”

\--

Two things happened in rapid succession.

The first was that Raphael had Fallen, and then ceased to exist and then became Crawly and then became Crowley. He wasn’t ashamed of it, did not shy away from the details. If you asked the demon Crowley the particulars of his downfall, he’d tell you. If you asked about his time in Heaven, the Before of the demon Crowley’s story, you wouldn’t remember asking soon after and instead be thinking of an embarrassing anecdote from your childhood.

Crowley remembered everything, though.

The second thing that happened was a gathering of Archangels. The new Raphael, recently promoted, sat among Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, and the others favored in Her image.

“Bad seed, Old Raphael. Did you see the thing with the stars?”

“Two of them, right up next to each other. Odd. Confuses anyone who goes out there. Only a  _ demon _ would sow seeds of confusion.”

The new word,  _ demon _ , set a kind of thrill among all gathered. It had just been invented that morning.

“You were there, weren’t you Azrael? When Old Raphael did that?”

Azrael didn’t answer. Kept looking off toward the endless horizon, vaguely downward.

“Azrael? Did you hear me?”

“I think,” Azrael looked at all gathered. They stood and walked away instead. They sought out Her comfort in their mind, closing their eyes in concentration.

_ I’d like to forget, if You please _ .

_ if this is what you want, then make it so. my will is yours also. _

_ I want to forget. Raphael, the Archangels. Myself. Make me in Your Image again. _

_ my will be done. _

The angel opened their eyes.

_ i have an assignment for you, Aziraphale… _

\--

“We have to go back,” Crowley says, surprising himself.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, surprising himself. “How much time do we have?”

Crowley looks at the watch on his wrist. He set it to the end-of-times countdown after the mishap with the hellhound. “Five hours. We have time, if you know where to go.”

“I do,” Aziraphale nods.

“Do me a favor?” Aziraphale nods again. Crowley takes off his sunglasses. “Look around.”

Aziraphale gazes at the expanse of Alpha Centauri.

“Oh,  _ Crowley _ .”

Proxima Centauri b, which Crowley has impulsively decided to rename to Astraios, is lush-green with wavering lines of river-turquoise, an atmosphere so clear Crowley swears he can see the outline of trees (they’re similar to redwoods in their height, maples in the leaves, beeches in their bark, and pines in their scent; all of the best qualities of the best of Earth’s trees, which Crowley blatantly plagiarised).

There are twin stars peeking out from behind the planet. Blue and white and red. Eyes and hair and cheeks.

“How did you find out about this place, Crowley?”

The question stills him. He could lie, presumably.  _ Google, Angel.  _ But there’s a niggling want to be honest, probably brought about by some End-Of-The-World need for transparency. Hadn’t he bared his soul enough for one day?  _ We could run off together _ . Right sap he was.

The truth escapes before Crowley can stop himself. “Er, I made it.” He pauses. “You know, Before.”

Crowley doesn’t look at Aziraphale, stares resolutely at the two suns he created. Aziraphale takes his hand, his grip tight, tense enough to cut off Crowley’s circulation if he had one, but he doesn’t speak. Crowley’s never talked about this, to anyone, at any point. Aziraphale knows this, obviously he does. Crowley does wish he would interrupt, because it’s uncomfortable business, being sincere. Aziraphale stays annoyingly silent, and Crowley has to fill the absence with rambling.

“You know angels, they do what they’re told. I was told to create. So I did. Got a little carried away, I guess. Then I started asking questions, but you know that, I told you that. Totally unrelated to this. This was something else. I had total control over this, could make it look like whatever I wanted, so I made it look like—” Crowley cuts himself off, forces himself to look at Aziraphale. He doesn’t want to, has an insane urge that he’d much rather be dealing with whatever is happening on Earth, but also thinks he’s quite done with being cowardly when it comes to Aziraphale. “I made it in someone’s image. Someone I, er, cared about. Sappy thing to do, probably dangerous, but there you go.”

Blue eyes, white hair, red cheeks.

Another name.

_ Please,  _ someone prays.  _ Please, will he remember? _

“Azrael,” Aziraphale whispers. He still doesn’t look at Crowley, and Crowley has to try very hard not to weep at the name. A name he hasn’t heard in millennia.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t,” Aziraphale narrows his eyes at the endlessness of stars and planets. “I didn’t know I looked the same as I did then.” Crowley watches, enraptured and tortured simultaneously, as Aziraphale looks at the twin stars lighting this particular universe. “I had blue eyes, even then?”

“Same hair, too. Same everything.” It’s Crowley’s turn to squeeze Aziraphale’s hand. “Except, not really.”

“No, not really, my darling.” Aziraphale’s thumb strokes at Crowley’s knuckles, catching at the skin. “I apologize, it’s all… fuzzy. I was Azrael, but I’m not anymore.” Finally,  _ finally _ , Aziraphale looks to Crowley, immediately reaches out to wipe at the tears gathering on Crowley’s cheeks. “Is that alright?”

“Aziraphale,” is the only word Crowley manages to choke out before he lets go of Aziraphale’s hand, uses the force of his wings to propel forward and land in Aziraphale’s embrace. 

“Oh, you beautiful creature,” and the brokenness of Aziraphale’s voice parallels perfectly the cracks of Crowley’s emotional walls. “I’m not—” Aziraphale interrupts himself to breathe deeply, as if to stave off tears, before he continues. “I’m not Azrael anymore, I’m not, and I’m glad of it. Because Aziraphale got sent to Earth— _ She  _ sent me to Earth—and got to meet you, and...and  _ wants  _ you, Crowley. Loves you.”

Crowley doesn’t care at all that he’s still crying when he pulls back, blinks just enough to get a clear picture of Aziraphale bathed in the double light of Alpha Centauri’s binary stars, the same light he’d fashioned in his image all those years and years and years ago. “I never wanted—no that’s not it, I did want, but it’s different now. I’m…” Crowley laughs, thick with tears but he feels so light. Literally walking on air. “I love  _ you _ , Aziraphale.”

“But I’ve been beastly, my love. Stupid and… and  _ mean _ .” Aziraphale is crying, too. The pair of them, flying in an impossible atmosphere, totally overcome. What saps ceaseless beings become in their old age.

“We’ve both been awful, I think we’re mature enough to admit it.”

“But—”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley wipes his thumb across Aziraphale’s cheek (red red red, the first red besides his own he’d ever witnessed, the first red that bloomed because of  _ him _ ) and smiles. “We’ll talk. Soon. Afterwards.”

Aziraphale sniffs, nods. Smiles. “We’ll talk. Later.” He looks around. “Will you bring me back here someday?”

“You want to?”

“I insist that we holiday here after this whole Armageddon mess is over.”

“You’re very certain that we’ll fix things, angel. Very positive.”

“I  _ like  _ Earth. I’m not willing to give it, or you, up any time soon.”

Crowley isn’t either, if truth be told.

“Do you have a plan to get us back, by the way? The journey here was lovely, of course, but I think we need to be back in a hurry.”

Crowley grins, puts on his sunglasses with a flourish. “Leave it to me.”

He snaps his fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> this would not be possible without [@dragon_with_a_teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_with_a_teacup)'s editing and general amazingness.


End file.
